


plant your feet, tell the truth, hope for the best

by hollimichele



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Post-War, badgermoles in the back garden, parental units
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-25
Updated: 2010-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-14 02:49:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/144524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollimichele/pseuds/hollimichele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Toph gets along better with her parents, these days.</p>
            </blockquote>





	plant your feet, tell the truth, hope for the best

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Neery](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neery/gifts).



There were a lot of things Toph liked about being the most powerful earthbender in the world. Not gonna lie: the adulation was pretty sweet. The fame she could take or leave-- people were starting to smarten up about hassling innocent little blind girls-- but it was pretty gratifying to have master earthbenders from all over the Kingdom come to her for lessons and advice. And metalbending was just cool.

Not that it made her top ten, but another nice thing about being the most powerful earthbender in the world was the way her parents acted around her, these days. No more “oh, Toph, you’re much too delicate and fragile for that,” or “oh, Toph, that’s not ladylike,” or “oh, Toph, please don’t let the badgermoles landscape the back garden.” Nope. She could do what she liked, and her parents couldn’t say boo. It made trips back home an awful lot easier.

Okay, so maybe Katara radiated disapproval at her, the one time she came along for a visit. So what? It wasn’t her fault that her parents had settled on treating her like a rare porcelain vase full of angry hornetwasps-- something easily breakable that, nonetheless, would do a whole lot of damage if it were upset.

“Your parents act like they’re afraid of you, Toph!” Katara said, as soon as she got Toph alone. They had just spent dinner chatting about how rebuilding was going at the South Pole, now that their warriors were back and people were starting to emigrate there from the North. She and Aang had, apparently, gotten a swift crash course in ice architecture from some Northern Water Tribe experts.

“...So it turns out that was a load-bearing wall. But I swear, I didn’t know Sokka was standing on the other side!” Katara had said, and when Toph burst into loud guffaws her mother hadn’t been able to hold in her tiny sniff of disapproval.

“What?” Toph demanded of her. “Something wrong with laughing at a joke?” And her mother had fallen over herself apologizing. Her father hadn’t even said a word.

Okay, so maybe things were still a little messed up, between Toph and her parents. “It’s not my fault they act like I’m going to drop a ton of rock on their heads if they make me mad,” she pointed out reasonably.

“I know that,” Katara said, “but it doesn’t seem like they do. Maybe you should talk to them, and make it clear that you’re really not going to drop a ton of rock on their heads.”

“Oh, fine,” Toph said, and stomped off to do just that.

Her parents were in their sitting room. From the rustle of cloth and _punk punk_ of the needle, Toph could tell her mother was embroidering something. Her father smelled of ink; she could hear the swish of his brush on the inkstone. Keeping track of his accounts, probably.

Both their heartbeats sped up when she came into the room. If she were being honest with herself, Toph hated that-- how, now that they really knew what she could do, and knew they couldn’t stop her, they turned into frightened rabbitmice at the sight of her.

She sighed. “We should probably talk,” she said.

Her father gulped audibly. Well, audibly to her. “What would you like to talk about, dear?” he asked, practically quavering. Maybe if her parents weren’t such wimps, this would be easier.

But no. She was a little to blame, too. The badgermoles in the garden had been a bit much, even she had to admit. “I’m sorry I’ve been bossing you guys around,” she said. “It was wrong of me. You’re my parents, and just because I’m not going to be the kind of daughter you want doesn’t mean it’s right for me to scare you or push you around.”

Her mother put down her embroidery. “Oh, Toph. We’re not scared of you.” She was lying, of course; Toph could hear it. But it was sweet of her to try.

“We worry about you, that’s all,” her father said. “We heard all sorts of things about you, during the war.” And that sounded nearly true.

“Well, I don’t know what you heard, but it was probably exaggerated. Unless you heard that I’m the greatest earthbender alive, or that I can bend metal, or that I took out a whole fleet of airships during Sozin’s Comet. That stuff’s all true.” She paused. “Okay, I had a little help with the airships.”

There was a pause. Her parents’ heatbeats slowed down a little, at least. “That’s wonderful, dear,” her mother said.

“We _are_ proud of you, you know,” her father said. “We just... don’t know what to do, or say, sometimes. It feels like we don’t know you very well anymore.” Ow. That stung a little, but it was true, wasn’t it? Toph had been pretty careful not to let her parents see the real her, before she left with Aang.

“You’re our daughter,” said her mother. “And we love you, whoever you are.” Her heart fluttered a little when she said it, but not the same way it did for a lie. And her hug felt real, and solid.

Katara was smug about it, of course. “Told you,” she said, flicking water from the ornamental stream at her.

“Yeah, yeah,” Toph said. She lobbed some pebbles back at Katara, but she didn’t really mean it.

**Author's Note:**

> Not a Yuletide fandom, but I hope you like your Christmas treat!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] plant your feet, tell the truth, hope for the best](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4566975) by [kalakirya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalakirya/pseuds/kalakirya)




End file.
